UnionPay International taps BankservAfrica for card processing in South Africa

By Delisha Fernandes

UnionPay International (UPI) has appointed BankservAfrica as its domestic on-soil processor to fast-track affordable, accessible and innovative card payments for South Africans.

This new partnership will see BankservAfrica take on the reigns as a domestic processor for all of UnionPay’s card issuing and acquiring services across its current ATMs, POS and ecommerce payment channels.

“By joining forces with a mutual organisation that shares UnionPay International Scheme’s purpose of serving the best interests of communities, our offerings to the market, including our fees, are customised for the environment. Taking our approach of ‘share growth’, we can create an enabling marketplace that benefits all participants within the payments ecosystem including financial institutions, small businesses and retailers for the economy to thrive,” said Asad Burney, Head of UnionPay International Africa Branch.

Union Pay has taken the decision to partner with local infrastructure and in so doing support local on-soil capability creating additional economies of scale through existing card rails for South African payments participants.

This appointment supports the South African Reserve Bank’s directive to ensure sustainable and robust transaction processing on-soil in South Africa to promote and support local payments infrastructure to drive lower cost and innovation to better serve South Africans.

“We believe this first-of-its-kind partnership with UnionPay International is more than just domestic card processing, it’s about building the synergies to enhance the capabilities and broaden the scale for card payments among the emerging and new markets. Inviting innovation that caters for these segments will address the persisting financial inclusion challenge,” said Stephen Linell, Chief Executive Officer at BankservAfrica.